So take a look inside yourselves and toss out everything with a hint of malice, deception, hypocrisy, envy, and slander. All of it. Babies are satisfied by one and only one thing: milk. Be like them in craving the “milk” of the Spirit which will grow you up in your salvation, now that you’ve developed a taste for the Lord.
Something happens to you when you come to him. He is the Living Stone — people skipped right over him, but God selected him, treating him like a precious stone — and he is taking you, like stones that are alive, and building you together into a temple for the Spirit. You’re to be different, a community of priests who offer sacrifices by the Spirit. God likes these. And it’s all because of Jesus, the anointed king of the world.
Consider Isaiah 28:
Look at what I’ve done:
I’ve set a stone in Zion,
A specially selected stone,
A precious cornerstone.
Build your life on him
And you won’t look stupid
With a fallen-apart mess of a life.
As I said, this Stone is precious. But only to those who believe. For those who don’t believe, it’s another matter entirely. As Psalm 118 puts it:
The stone discarded by the builders
Ended up as the cornerstone.
And then there’s Isaiah 8:
A stone people trip over,
A rock that sends them sprawling on the ground.
Why do they trip and fall? They scorn the Voice. But it’s no surprise. They were heading in that direction all along.
But not you. You are hand-picked people. You are priests with royal blood in your veins. You are a different kind of community. You are God’s treasure. You’ve been given the job of pointing out the awesomeness of the one flipped on the switch, turning your dark lives to light. There was a time when you were nobodies. But now you are God’s somebodies. There was a time when no one loved you. But now you are drenched in love.
I love you too. So, please listen to me here.
You are aliens and outcasts in this world. Embrace it and act that way toward sin. Its corrupting desires are at war with your souls. As you live among people who believe all kinds of strange things about God and who think you are stupid and even evil because of it, live lives that are so good and true and beautiful that they change their minds. Wouldn’t it be amazing if they ended up among those who glorify God on the Day of his Coming?
Because you serve the Lord, accept the authority of humans who have been placed in positions over you. This includes the leader of the country as the top boss and it includes those who carry out the laws of the land, punishing law-breakers and praising good neighbors. This is so important to God. He wants your lives to be so good that stupid, godless slanderers have nothing to say because the quality of your lives shuts them up.
Live in wide-open freedom. But don’t turn that freedom into an excuse for doing what you know is wrong. This may sound like a paradox, but the key the free life is to live as God’s slaves.
Be respectful to everyone you meet. Be loving toward this family brought together by faith. Keep God always at the front of your minds. Honor your head of state.
In your jobs, remembering it is God who is at the center of your lives, put yourselves under the authority of your bosses. And I don’t just mean the ones who are considerate and respectful. I mean the toxic ones too. It does not go unnoticed when you have to put up with injustice in the workplace because God is first and foremost in your life. But who is going to throw you a party for doing something wrong and getting written up and beat up because of it? But if you are always doing the right thing and endure suffering because of it, God takes close notice of it and is pleased with you.
Hear me: This is your job, your calling. Remember what the anointed king of the world did? He suffered for you. He’s your example. Follow in his footsteps.
As Isaiah 53 says:
He didn’t do anything wrong.
He didn’t even say anything wrong.
They insulted him. But he didn’t retaliate. He suffered bitterly but didn’t speak a bitter word. He knew there is a Just Judge and he turned himself over completely to his justice.
Also in the words of Isaiah 53, ”He was the one who suffered the consequences of our sins” in his body there on the tree. Because he did that, we can now die to sin and live good lives, justice-filled lives. As Isaiah wrote, “it took him being wounded for us to be healed.” And this: “You were like lost sheep,” but you have come home to the Shepherd of your souls, who watches over you diligently.